twisted fantasies, twisted realities
by JessicaFay
Summary: "But she never makes these twisted fantasies into twisted realities, because as much as she likes the thought of him dead, she's not quite sure how she feels about the idea of living without him." clato oneshot, for clatoficholla exchange on tumblr


**an: **for the clatoficholla exchange on tumblr. prompt: broke a promise that i tried (but my heart no longer beats)

x

They're always playing games.

Every moment of every day, around the clock, everything is a game, everything is a challenge; every laugh, every smirk, every sideways glance, and every cut, every scratch, every bruise and every scar.

She'll break his arm, and he'll snap her wrists.

She'll slit his throat, and he'll cut her neck.

She'll call him stupid, and he'll laugh, make fun of her small chest.

"At least I've got a brain," she'll snap, eyes throwing daggers just as sharp as the ones she throws with her hands.

"Whatever you say, sweetie," he'll reply, patronizing and arrogant and endlessly infuriating.

They're always playing games, all the time, but neither ever wins.

x

Sometimes she imagines killing him, dragging her knife through his chest or throwing a dagger into his heart.

She can see every detail in picture-perfect clarity: his blood, running thick and rich and red out of his mouth; his piercing blue eyes, going dark and rolling into the back of his head; his heart, always so fast and fierce and alive, stopping, ceasing, no longer thumping and bumping and pushing life through his veins.

She enjoys these fantasies, cherishes them; when they come in the form of dreams they are not nightmares but blissful visions, from which she finds herself waking with a smile on her face and her hand gripped tight around the knife she always sleeps with.

But she never makes these twisted fantasies into twisted realities, because as much as she likes the thought of him dead, she's not quite sure how she feels about the idea of living without him.

x

He's always trying to mark her, constantly tries to cut her or wound her or leave fresh new scars.

He likes the way her soft, pale skin looks covered in blue and purple bruises, decorated with blood and cuts and scratches. He likes breaking her, likes how the bones snap beneath his hands; likes hurting her, likes how malleable her flesh feels beneath his fingers, as though one swift move could rip away her blood, her breath, her life.

She's not fragile, by any means. But she is human, and humans are not invulnerable.

And on every single one of her vulnerabilities, he capitalizes, never missing a chance to leave one more mark.

And that's the feeling he likes best of all, that feeling of marking her, scarring her, making himself a part of her, irrevocably; claiming her, as only his.

x

Some days she allows him to have his way with her; as they grow older, these days increase in frequency and number and passion, until having him attached to her lips or her hands or her hips has become as natural as breathing.

Nothing about these affairs, these bursts of heat and fury and passion, is sweet or tender or lovely; rather, it's simply an extension of their constant competition, their game, the game which they are always playing.

Because usually, they fight, work against each other's bodies, each trying to take control of the other with every move: usually, it's her lips sucking his mouth, her hands wrapped around his neck, her tongue stuck down his throat, her legs wrapped around his waist; his lips leaving bruises on her skin, his eyes burning holes into her irises, his hands tangling into her hair, his fingers leaving bruises on her waist-her body pressed flush against his.

Usually, it's blood and flesh and animalistic passion, pain and fire and ice and heat.

x

Sometimes, however, it's something else, something deeper, something neither of them wants to deal with.

Beneath the brutality and bloodiness and the ferocity is something else, something softer and warmer and electric, and their bodies flow into each other, fall into each other like pieces of a simple, intricate puzzle.

Neither of them wants to deal with it, and he is perfectly content with pretending that he doesn't want her.

x

She tells herself that she'll be fine without him, that killing him won't kill a piece of her.

And, on most days, she thinks she doesn't love him.

In her weakest moments, she knows that she does.

x

When the seventy-fourth Games finally comes around, he volunteers. She's three years too young, only fifteen, but out of spite, she does, too.

x

It's always a game.

Neither ever wins.

And both are content with being pawns instead of players, mindlessly fighting and never agreeing to join forces, or come together, or embrace the soft electricity that flows between their sweaty palms, as they shake hands on a stage, as District 2 cheers for its new tributes.

x

The night before the Games finds Cato in Clove's bedroom, fucking her and hurting her and leaving more marks than he ever has before. He still won't admit it, to her or to himself, but he knows, in the back of his mind, that the two of them are something more than what they always pretend to be.

After all, Cato realizes, as her lips brush against his skin, for the two of them, pain and love go hand and hand. Injury is intimacy, scars are signs of affection, and fighting, competing, playing this never-ending game means caring, means wanting, means loving somebody more than anyone else.

And that night, he makes a promise, softly, as she falls asleep on the other side of the bed, content to sleep next to a knife instead of a man.

He promises that, when it's the two of them left in the arena, he will give to her the greatest gift he can bestow: he will make her death wonderful, memorable, beautiful; he will shift her bones into the loveliest places, will leave scars in spots that everyone can see, will spread the blood on her skin like paint on a canvas, will make her pain so great that it seems like pleasure.

And her only response is exactly what he expects:

"Why are you so sure you're going to be the one doing the killing?"

At face-value, this is always a game.

But beneath her words, spoken softly and silently and with that warm electricity, is her, saying she will do the same for him.

x

But a few days later, blood covers his hands, staining his skin and pooling in the lines of his palms and filling the empty spaces underneath his nails, as he holds her dying body in his arms.

This isn't right, he thinks as he shakes her shoulders and yells at her to stay with him.

"This isn't right!" he yells to nobody in particular except the sky, as he watches the life fall from her eyes.

"This isn't right," he whispers as he hears her last heartbeat exit through her bloodstream and her veins and her bones.

This isn't right. She isn't supposed to die like this.

She isn't supposed to die like this. Her death was supposed to be wonderful, beautiful, something people would remember; not just a rock to the head and only Cato's name for a last word.

This isn't right. Her death was supposed to belong to him.

Their game isn't supposed to finish like this.

Her death was supposed to be his. She was his, she was his to kill.

She was his and he was hers. She'd promised him once.


End file.
